20 minutes ago, carolineg said:

Oh, no worries.  Just not my favorite scene to re-visit.  The begging, the violence, the whole breakup was just rough.  I have seen it a million times of course.

I think VM and MB have done several interviews about it and their motivation and the way the scene was played made sense.  It just doesn't hold up well and Sonny has repeated the same mistakes for years now.

Aww

 

But good to see they have done interviews. But I do hate scenes that don't hold up well. But I understand the signs of the time on some things. 

Rory Gibson is phenomenal. 

7 minutes ago, MontyB said:

Rory Gibson is phenomenal. 

He hit the ground running and has continued.

9 minutes ago, MontyB said:

Rory Gibson is phenomenal. 

Emmy-winning casting director, Mark T. hit another home run!!

I think Rory Gibson is great.  But the writing for Michael has gotten much better since Chad left.  

I think Rory is certainly an upgrade from Chad in terms of presence and charisma. He’s a little bit lock-jawed, though, and you can tell he’s not sure what to do with his arms in wide shots. He also does that SoCal actor thing of adopting a vaguely East Coast tough guy style of pronunciation.

But he’s been given a ton of material almost immediately; he clearly has commitment and stamina, and he’ll keep improving, unless he learns the wrong lessons from Mo and Steve.

Let me go ahead and say awww at Nina and Dr. O seeing each other.

 

It's nice to see someone in Nina's corner. 

 

And it might have taken longer than us guessing, but as expected Sasha got her reunion with Robert. 

On 7/24/2025 at 9:58 PM, carolineg said:

One of these is not like the others! Brenda

On 7/24/2025 at 9:44 PM, Planet Soap said:

ADA Turner fits the profile of a Sonny live interest. Dark hair, spanish/italian flair, sassy. Examples:  Brenda, Sam, Hannah, Reese Marshall, Claudia, Olivia, Natalia.

Loved that Portia's mail showed GH's address. Was that established before?

It's been argued that a couple of these women (Hannah, Sam) were Brenda replacements.

Drew today brining up Michael talking Willow from Chase? How did that down again?...because it would be karma if Michael cheated with Willow against Chase.

 

21 minutes ago, Planet Soap said:

It's been argued that a couple of these women (Hannah, Sam) were Brenda replacements.

Brenda doppelgangers! Brenda bots!

21 minutes ago, Planet Soap said:

Drew today brining up Michael talking Willow from Chase? How did that down again?...because it would be karma if Michael cheated with Willow against Chase.

Michael & Willow were definitely carrying on while she was pretending to be with Chase because she thought he might be dying. But, I don't see either karma or irony. Michael & Willow were both clear that they wanted to be with each other & would be as soon as they finished this pity pretending when Chase died. 

This is the prime time to bring on a series of potential new romantic options for Michael, like Zoe Richardson/Ward (who Guza almost brought in for Drew Garrett's teen Michael oh so long ago) or Serena Baldwin or whoever else. A bland reunion with him and Willow which restores her to mediocre factory settings is not it. Gibson and KM play quite well together but that interplay should stay volatile, and she should stay crazy. (She can even con him into taking her back for a time, but it shouldn't last.)

Another 7(?) years of Katelyn MacMullen on this show being Sunny Homemaker again to make Facebook moms and grandmas happy is not the future, certainly not when she's proven she can do much more. We've already endured too many years of Frank just hanging onto people out of familiarity and personal fondness - Sasha was one example, and Willow was one of many others until this past year when she finally got a chance to break out. They need to keep that energy for her, and start doing new things with Michael too.

Edited August 1Aug 1 by Vee

1 hour ago, Planet Soap said:

It's been argued that a couple of these women (Hannah, Sam) were Brenda replacements.

 

My point was that Brenda is the original-the others were replacements.  Although I don't put Claudia in that category at all.

Even though SJB was playing a second character I thought Claudia was fairly original.  She was more similar to Faith than any of Sonny's previous love interests.

6 minutes ago, Vee said:

This is the prime time to bring on a series of potential new romantic options for Michael, like Zoe Richardson/Ward (who Guza almost brought in for Drew Garrett's teen Michael oh so long ago) or Serena Baldwin or whoever else. A bland reunion with him and Willow which restores her to mediocre factory settings is not it. Gibson and KM play quite well together but that interplay should stay volatile, and she should stay crazy. (She can even con him into taking her back for a time, but it shouldn't last.)

Agreed.  It would be a great time to explore Rory's chemistry with new love interests.  It doesn't appear he's the chemistry vacuum Chad was.

I still wonder how far a long they got with casting Zoe.  I remember the character being mentioned in interviews and on the show, but never appearing.  I suppose Guza ditched the idea early on when he really couldn't figure out what to do with Maya.

36 minutes ago, carolineg said:

I still wonder how far a long they got with casting Zoe.  I remember the character being mentioned in interviews and on the show, but never appearing.  I suppose Guza ditched the idea early on when he really couldn't figure out what to do with Maya.

A lot of things were in flux in that period, I think. Guza clearly wanted to pull back on Sonny vs. promoting Dante as the ascendent male lead for a time. JJ came back but as ever, they didn't want to do the story he wanted (Lucky/Elizabeth). Matt Borlenghi's Valentin never appeared* (in lieu of the James Franco Experience), nor did several new young Cassadines that were rumored at the time to come with him. I think those could have been worthy additions. And the much-publicized Ward return with Maya, where GH and ABC clearly wanted brownie points for adding more characters of color, almost immediately evaporated.

I don't think they were ever terribly committed to Black characters - they hadn't been for over a decade - but I do think some of those plans fell by the wayside due to all sorts of changing plans, the Michael recast, creative priorities, VM coming back, etc. It was clear though they had no real use for Maya other than being a (largely offscreen) spoiler for Ethan and Kristina, a pairing they also weren't sure they could handle pulling the trigger on. Still, the raw creative potential is there for those characters or other Wards.

(* - before someone says it, that's not to say I think Borlenghi was a good choice for the Valentin role, but it also would likely have been a more formidable character on the page than Billy Joel and less of a waste of time than Franco's follies)

Edited August 1Aug 1 by Vee

25 minutes ago, Vee said:

A lot of things were in flux in that period, I think. Guza clearly wanted to pull back on Sonny vs. Dante as the ascendent male lead for a time. Matt Borlenghi's Valentin never appeared* (in lieu of the James Franco Experience), nor did several new young Cassadines that were rumored at the time to come with him. I think those could have been worthy additions. And the much-publicized Ward return with Maya, where GH and ABC clearly wanted brownie points for adding more characters of color, almost immediately evaporated.

I don't think they were ever terribly committed to Black characters - they hadn't been for over a decade - but I do think some of those plans fell by the wayside due to all sorts of changing plans, the Michael recast, creative priorities, VM coming back, etc. It was clear though they had no real use for Maya other than being a (largely offscreen) spoiler for Ethan and Kristina, a pairing they also weren't sure they could handle pulling the trigger on. Still, the raw creative potential is there for those characters or other Wards.

(* - before someone says it, that's not to say I think Borlenghi was a good choice for the Valentin role, but it also would likely have been a more formidable character on the page than Billy Joel and less of a waste of time than Franco's follies)

All makes sense.  Franco really derailed the show that year.

I would have been at least interested to see MB's take on Valentin, as I am sure the role was completely different than whatever we have now.

It was a mistake not to bring Zoe or even a few other teens on.  It was odd to me they just aged Kristina and Michael, so the two of them basically only interacted with one another in their age bracket.  That's why the audience thought they might go there with Kristina/Michael lol.

And maybe they should've! It had a forbidden element to it. But you could never today.

2 hours ago, carolineg said:

My point was that Brenda is the original-the others were replacements.

BLOOP!!!